Big Cicadas

Former college professor Jay Jarvis has no regrets about the quiet path he chose long ago to follow. Now a veteran middle school teacher in the small town of Still Creek, Pennsylvania, he takes comfort in a life that has become a fixed, safe routine.

Then, just two weeks before the start of summer, a child he taught the previous year drowns in Still Creek Quarry. In that instant, the life Jay spent so many years cultivating is irrevocably lost.

As the summer draws on, Jay finds himself caught in the spokes of a runaway, unsubstantiated scandal. The crisis deepening and despair growing, he turns in desperation to the only thing that might save him—his past. A moving, provocative look at regeneration in the face of great adversity, Big Cicadas is the chronicle of a lost man who has one last chance to find himself—and who, in doing so, may help more people than he can possibly imagine.